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Saturday, July 05, 2014

Designer DKNY Goes Ramadan

American designer Donna Karan has added a for-Muslim-women line to DKNY.

Two Middle Eastern women designed the conservative outfits which are debuting as the Ramadan Summer 2014 collection.

Yalda Golsharifi is the fashion editor of Styles Magazine, and designer Tamara al-Gabbani is based in Dubai.

The line boasts long, flowing dresses, skirts, and jumpsuits; long-sleeved shirts, coats, and even a three-quarters-length leather jacket.Bina Shah, writing for The Independent, says the result is a collection that is “inspirational for Muslim women looking for ways to be glam and modest at the same time.“The fabrics drape around the body, encasing the curves that nature gave Middle Eastern women without making them obvious, or attempting to disguise them in bag-like abayas. They walk the fine line between cosmopolitan and conservative, luxurious and ostentatious,” she added.

According to Shah, DKNY had included a saying of the Prophet Mohammad on their website: “Ramadan is the month whose beginning is mercy, whose middle is forgiveness and whose end is freedom from fire.” However, they had reportedly edited the saying to remove the words “from fire.”

Shah asserted that “this can be corrected immediately, either by removing the quote completely or using the quote in totality and telling us who said it. If you’re going to appeal to Muslims, half-measures like these won’t work; authenticity is the key element in making concepts like these a success.”

As far as I can tell, they removed the whole phrase because I couldn't find it on the DKNY website. Maybe you can.

Nothing wrong with modest clothing, but dang they're ugly. Then again, didn't find anything appealing in the non-Ramadan line either.

The collection is only available in DKNY stores in the Middle East: UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Who knew they had a location in Iraq. They'll be selling burqas out of that store once ISIS takes hold of the country.